1

Published in Sandrine Perrot et al., Elections in a hybrid regime: revisiting the 2011

Ugandan polls, Fountain Publishers, 2014.

Introduction

Looking back at the 2011 Multiparty Elections in Uganda

Sandrine Perrot, Jérôme Lafargue, Sabiti Makara

On 18 February 2011, President Museveni was re-elected for a fourth term with 68.4% of the

votes, against his main opponent Kizza Besigye, President of the Forum for Democratic

Change (FDC) with 26%. President Museveni reversed the past downward trend of previous

elections – he scored 74.3% in 1996, 69.4% in 2001 and 59.2% in 2006 -, and even improved

his 2006 score by 10%. All the other contenders only got single-digit scores.1 Significantly,

for the first time, President Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) won in

every region of Uganda, including in former opposition strongholds in the North. The ruling

NRM increased its legislative majority by winning 263 seats out of 375 in Parliament (164 of

the 237 directly elected seats and a majority of the special interest groups’ seats for women,

youth, people with disabilities and workers, including 86 of the 112 seats reserved for

1
Democratic Party (DP) President Norbert Mao polled a meager 147,917 votes (1.86%), Olara Otunnu of

Uganda People's Congress (UPC) got 125,059 (1.58%), Beti Kamya (UFA, Uganda Federal Alliance), 52,782

(0.66%). Dr. Abed Bwanika of the People's Development Party (PDP) scored a paltry 51,708 (0.65%), Bidandi

Ssali of the People's Progressive Party secured (PPP) just 34,688 (0.44%) while independent candidate Samuel

Walter Lubega 32,726 (0.41%).

 2

women).2 These results repeated in the local elections whereby NRM swept most of the local

government seats (Local Council III and V). On the reverse side, the opposition candidates

who had performed fairly well in 2006 experienced a tremendous decline and recorded

significant losses in northern and eastern Uganda.

Interpreted as a clear reaffirmation of Museveni’s popularity and legitimacy, these

indisputable results remain paradoxically questionable. Interestingly, convergent pre-electoral

opinion polls had pre-announced this nationwide victory.3 Brushed aside by journalists and

analysts as being excessively influenced by the tense atmosphere of latent violence and

intimidation to represent the free expression of people’s genuine views, the polls also

contradicted a widespread perception among observers and field analysts that this election

process was not a foregone conclusion. The national context had certainly improved

compared to the 2006 elections. For the first time since 1986, peace had been restored in the

whole territory of Uganda. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which had been fighting the

government for the past 25 years left northern Uganda and redeployed in Central Africa in

2008. The end of insurgency represented a real opportunity for the NRM to capture this

2
The FDC won 23 directly elected seats and 11 of the seats reserved for women. The DP and the UPC took 12

and 10 seats respectively. The Conservative Party (CP) and the JEEMA (Justice Forum) won one seat each. 43

independent candidates were also elected, most of whom are close to the NRM. During by-elections organized in

2011 and 2012, the NRM lost five seats, the FDC gained 2 and the DP 3.
3
Afrobarometer 4.5 Round Survey (December 2010) and 4.5.2 (January 2011), available at

www.afrobarometer.ug; TNS/RI for the Daily Monitor (January 2011), “Museveni Leads, Ugandans Fear to

Speak Freely,” 13 February 2011 available at http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1107166/-

/c55b67z/-/index.html.
 3

former opposition stronghold.4 Recent oil discoveries in Bunyoro in western and northern

Uganda also raised high expectations about Uganda’s future economic development.

On the other hand, there was a widely shared perception that, after 25 years of power, the

popularity of the regime would collapse. Analysts speculated on the growing social discontent

about economic inequalities, poor education and health services, and recurrent grand

corruption scandals (especially the CHOGM scandal involving some of the regime’s highest

officials)5 but also on heightened strained relations between the central government and

Buganda kingdom, formerly bedrock of the NRM support.6 With 17% of the population,

Buganda represents an important part of the electorate and a strong caucus in Parliament.

Long-standing disputes and grievances over land issues and power relationships between the

kingdom and the central state escalated during the mid-September 2009 riots that occurred

after police stopped Kabaka (King) Ronald Mutebi from attending a rally in the Kayunga

district, where the Banyala ethnic group made secession claims from the Buganda kingdom.

The riots left 27 people dead. Tensions were reignited with the burning of Kasubi heritage

4
Since 1996, opposition had got a fair share of the votes in the North on account of the government’s failure to

end the war and to deliver services. The end of conflict brought new issues on board – on the one hand,

accusations of land grabbing by politically connected elites, and on the other the question of which party was

more positioned to take the people out of poverty.

5
Several senior officials, including the Vice-President Gilbert Bukenya who chaired the Cabinet sub-committee

on Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kutesa, were

accused of abuse office and of causing financial loss stemming from the 2007 CHOGM preparations. Bukenya

was sacked from the government in May 2011 but all the charges against him were dropped in November 2011,

a few days before his corruption trial was due to begin. The Anti-Corruption Court has dismissed the case

against Kutesa and two other ministers for lack of evidence in November 2012.
6
Another point of contention was the government bill to create a metropolitan authority to administer Kampala

(2009) that would weaken the powers of the elected mayor of the capital (most likely to be a Muganda).
 4

site, the burial place for four of the last kings of Buganda in March 20107 and the

controversial debate about the Cultural Leaders Bill (2010) voted into law a few days before

the elections despite being vehemently opposed by the kingdom’s establishment.8 Moreover,

the NRM potential capture of northern Uganda was further mortgaged by the renewal of the

Democratic Party (DP) and Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) leadership and the election of

two northerners, a vocal and youthful lawyer and MP for Gulu, Norbert Mao and a firebrand

former United Nations Undersecretary just back from exile, Olara-Otunnu.

Above all, internecine dissent within the ruling party and the emergence of disgruntled

candidates challenging the results of the controversial August 2010 party primaries by

contesting as independents seemed to weaken the NRM. Despite the recent adoption of

universal suffrage for the primaries aimed at strengthening party discipline, the constituency

level competition created unprecedented hostilities amongst party members and the

contestants. In addition, the contestation for the position of Secretary General between the big

wigs of the party revealed a lot of intrigue within the ruling party.9 The international context

marked by the removal of the longstanding presidents of Tunisia and Egypt in January and

February 2011, did not seem to be favourable to similar ageing regimes. The high

monetization of the campaign, beefing up of security agencies, reform of the police,

7
Even though the responsibility of the burning was not clearly identified, Museveni who came to the historical

site and the security forces were set upon by the demonstrators. The popular demonstrations were violently

repressed by the government security agencies.

8
The purpose of the law was to regulate the activities of traditional leaders, and specifically to limit their

powers. It was believed that the Kabaka had lent tacit support to some opposition parties (FDC and DP)

especially after he appeared in many pictures using a dummy key – the FDC symbol - to symbolize the opening

of the New Year during celebrations at Lubiri Palace two months before elections (the symbol of the key

however is regularly used in such a context).

9
The candidates for the position of NRM’s Secretary General were Amama Mbabazi (Minister for Security),

Kahinda Otafiire (Minister for Local Government) and Gilbert Bukenya (Vice-President).
 5

deployment of the army countrywide and recruitment of militias by the NRM and opposition

parties fuelled fears that the elections would lead to massive vote rigging or to a Kenya-like

scenario of electoral and/or post-electoral violence. Added to Besigye’s declarations about his

intention on protest to the streets if elections were rigged, the campaign was anticipated to be

the toughest the regime would have experienced this far.

The purpose of our study therefore was twofold. First, we wanted to question the

consolidation of democracy in Uganda. The 2011 elections were the second to be held under

the multiparty dispensation under the NRM regime. The 2006 elections malpractices induced

national and international demands for reforms. None of the observers’ reports officially

declared the elections as free and fair (see Jonathan Fisher’s chapter) but compared to past

elections, the level of state-inspired violence was much lower in 2011, even though significant

pockets of violence remained during local polls. Qualified as “a sham” by the opposition, the

elections did not witness massive rigging or intimidation.10 Does this decreasing level of

election-related violence and extensive malpractices suggest the institutionalisation of

democratic electoral practices? Or does it mean that the regime has been using other tactics to

consolidate its power, with a rather ambiguous relationship towards democratic electoral

practices? Second, to properly assess this first point we had to understand and analyse this

10
Fraud has been established in several cases though, like for example during Kampala Mayoral elections.

Voting at several polling stations had been cancelled after massive reports of ballot stuffing by agents of NRM

candidate Peter Sematimba. In Rubaga North, in the election opposing Katongole Singh and Moses Kasibante,

the returning officer did not include in the tally, results from seven polling stations leading to a fierce judicial

fight between the two candidates. The High Court reinstated Moses Kasibante as Rubaga North MP in October

2011. Singh Sematimba was thrown out of Parliament after his appeal was nullified in May 2012. However, one

has to notice that petitions have been taken to Court and 13 elections have been nullified. See Golaz and Médard

in this volume.
 6

seemingly paradoxical re-election of President Museveni and the NRM against the backdrop

of a previous fading electoral support. How can we explain this resounding victory, whose

results are pretty close to the ones anticipated by opinion polls, in a context that seemed

favourable to the opposition? What shaped voters’ opinion in the 2011 Ugandan elections?

Main findings

Two types of analyses were proposed to explain the 2011 electoral outcomes: one, widely

shared in the media, highlights the fear and money factors as key features impacting people’s

vote; the other, presented by an Afrobarometer report, downplays the role of public good

outlays, vote buying, district creation or fear and intimidation in the electoral process.

Although the report does not explain the NRM fading support in past elections and the

surprising improvement of Museveni’s electoral scores in the 2011 election, the corroborative

opinion polls they conducted (see Nicolas de Torrenté’s boxes in this volume) suggest that the

2011 electoral outcome has to be understood as the expression of the underestimated NRM

popularity linked to its good assessment in terms of macroeconomic growth and security

provision combined with an “uninspiring opposition.”

This volume presents a third approach. In this collective book, we argue that even though

there was no direct massive rigging or violence, these elections do not necessarily reinforce

either the consolidation of democracy or the legitimacy of the regime. The 2011 elections

wrongly suggest that the President Museveni’s and the NRM’s wide victory represent a

strengthening of its political authority and legitimacy. Our main conclusion is that the

elections highlight an electoral more than a political support for Museveni’s regime (see

Sandrine Perrot’s chapter). In other words, a vote for Museveni does not necessarily imply an
 7

ideological adhesion to the NRM policies and mode of governance or recognition of the

regime’s legitimacy. This does not mean that the election outcome does not reflect people’s

views: people certainly “freely” voted for the NRM but for several reasons. First, the NRM

succeeded in convincing people that the opposition was not a credible alternative while the

opposition took it for granted that they had a significant and growing support, therefore failing

to tackle its internal weaknesses partly inherited from the no-party system, partly

organisational. Most importantly, the NRM regime, through both the massive distribution of

financial and material incentives and use of at least subtle political violence, convinced the

electorate that in the short or medium term the incumbent regime will remain in power.

Linked to this last point, we argue that the electorate, especially in recently captured areas,

chose to be on the winner’s side and not in the opposition by fear of political or economic

marginalisation – a position which raises essential questions about what it means to be in the

opposition in contemporary Uganda. This electoral behaviour comes along with a now

entrenched perception that the regime will not change through elections. Our argument is not

that the elections cannot lead to an alternation of power but that the electorate internalized

such an idea and voted accordingly. This is one of the characteristics of hybrid regimes and

part of the regime strategy to defang competition.

Elections and democratic consolidation

Academic literature has put into question the mechanical link between multiparty elections

and their expected embodiment of democracy. Multipartyism emerged in the late 1980s in

many sub-Saharan African countries, often under international and sometimes local popular

pressures. Over two decades after this third wave of democratization began, the assessments

of multipartyism determined at first by a measured but real optimism about the prospects of
 8

democratic entrenchment,11 progressively turned into analyses of on-going but also deceptive

democratic achievements.12 Recent works on democratization are increasingly cautious about

the capacity of genuine power sharing,13 highlighting democratic shortcomings or even

reversals to autocratic regimes and questioning the ability of donors to influence political and

economic situations in a right way.14 Throughout a large spectrum of situations, African

countries are undoubtedly more democratic today than in the 1980s. However, elections and

multipartyism – the perceived hallmarks of democracy for democracy-promotion agencies –

have not always produced the expected impulse towards the consolidation of democratization

and related transformation of power relationships.15

Staffan Lindberg posits that the repetition of elections could be a building block in

consolidating democratic values. Insisting on the time-factor, he argues that “the more
11
Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle, eds, Democratic Experiments in Africa. Regime Transitions in

Comparative Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; Richard Joseph, “Democratization in

Africa Since 1989. Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives,” Comparative Politics 29, no.3 (1997): 363-82;

Jennifer Widner, ed., Economic Change and Political Liberalization in Africa (Baltimore: The John Hopkins

University Press, 1994).

12
Larry Diamond and Mark F. Plattner, eds., Democratization in Africa. Progress and Retreat (Baltimore: The

John Hopkins University Press, 2010). Gabrielle Lynch and Gordon Crawford, “Democratization in Africa,

1990-2010. An Assessment,” Democratization 18, no.2 (2011): 281-82. Larry Diamond, “The Democratic Roll-

Back: The Resurgence of the Predatory State,” Foreign Affairs 87 (2008): 36-48.
13
Robert Mattes and Michael Bratton, “Learning about Democracy in Africa. Awareness, Performance and

Experience,” American Journal of Political Science 51, no.1 (2007): 192-217.

14
Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes, “Support for Democracy in Africa. Intrinsic or Instrumental?,” British

Journal of Political Science 31, no.3 (2001): 447-74; Stephen Brown, “Well, What Can You Expect?: Donor

Official’s Apologetics for Hybrid Regimes in Africa,” Democratization 18, no.2 (2011): 512-34.
15
Olivier Dabène, Vincent Geisser , Gilles Massardier , Michel Camau, eds., Autoritarismes démocratiques et

démocraties autoritaires au XXIème siècle (La Découverte, 2008).

 9

successive elections, the more democratic a nation becomes.”16 According to this author,

elections would engage a virtuous cycle by facilitating the idea of competitive politics,

engaging citizens in public debates, taking part in increasing the quest for public

accountability and scrutiny of public policies. In the contrary, most scholars are more

sceptical about the genuine value of elections in the democratization process. They highlight

the ambiguous nature of contemporary regimes that developed in the “grey zones of

democratization.”17 A new category of “democracy with adjectives” has emerged.18 These

hybrid regimes, like the Ugandan one, whether we call them “pseudo-democracy”, semi-

democratic, semi-authoritarian, electoral or competitive authoritarianism,19 are neither

democratic nor classically authoritarian, but combine both elements.20 The lexical profusion

surrounding this political situation reflects the complex and ambiguous nature of

contemporary regimes in which contradictory trends merge. While several African countries

revisited their one-party or military rule constitutions, embraced multipartyism, routinized

16
Staffan I. Lindberg, “The Surprising Significance of African Elections,” Journal of Democracy 17 (2006):

149. See also Staffan I. Lindberg, Democracy and Elections in Africa (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University

Press, 2006).
17
Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War

(Cambridge University Press, 2010).

18
David Collier and Steven Levitsky, “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative

Research,” World Politics 49, no. 3 (Apr., 1997): 430-451.

19
Andreas Schedler, ed., Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition, (Lynne Rienner

Publishers, 2006); Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism.

20
Larry Diamond, “Thinking about Hybrid Regimes,” Journal of Democracy 13, no.2 ( 2002): 21-35. See also

Aili Mari Tripp, Museveni’s Uganda. Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime (Lynne Rienner Publishers,

Boulder, London, 2010); Matthijs Bogaards, “How to Classify Hybrid Regimes? Defective Democracy and

Electoral Authoritarianism,” Democratization 16 (2009): 399-423; See also Joshua Rubongoya, Regime

Hegemony in Uganda, Pax Musevenica (Palgrave MacMillan, 2007).

 10

pluralistic elections, and allowed some political freedoms, electoral systems are still subject to

partisan manipulations. Incumbent presidents are rarely ousted through ballot boxes,

presidentialism and neopatrimonial governance keep growing strong, while the political

opposition remains weak.21

As Diamond suggests, the adoption of multipartysim and the regular holding of relatively free

and fair elections are a necessary but insufficient condition to classify a regime as

consolidated democracy even if it introduces “some degree of competition and uncertainty.”

Hybrid regimes are made of paradoxes and tensions between adopting democratic reforms to

legitimate their rule both internally and externally but restricting them to “manageable” ones,

thus opening the political scene and allowing competition while ensuring, through more subtle

forms of political control, the survival of the regime. As Diamond argues, these regimes “have

the form of electoral democracy but fail to meet the substantive test, or do so only

ambiguously.”22 In other words, multipartyism and elections – ironically adopted under

donors’ pressure to set up formal democracy – have not yet yielded genuine liberal

democracies, on the contrary, they have generated new forms of nondemocratic rule. Hybrid

regimes as such are not new. Unlike in Latin America or Asia in the 1960s and 1970s,

scholars insist on the fact that contemporary hybrid regimes may be here to stay which would

signify the end of the transition paradigm.23

21
See the special issue edited by Emil Uddhamar, Elliott Green and Johanna Söderstrom, “Political Opposition

and Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Democratization 18, no.5 (2011): 1057-1066.

22
Diamond, Thinking about hybrid regimes, 22. See also Michael F. Keating, “Can Democratization Undermine

Democracy? Economic and Political Reform in Uganda,” Democratization 18, no.2 (2011): 415-442 on the role

of Parliament on the Ugandan political scene.

23
Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,” Journal of Democracy 13 (January 2002): 16.
 11

In this reflection on the consolidation of democracy, the Ugandan 2011 elections were a

testing ground. There is no academic consensus on how to define and measure the

consolidation of democracy. The different existing approaches are intimately linked to the

definition of democracy itself. Adopting a minimalist definition of democracy entails

contenting with a definition of consolidation restricted mainly to the institutionalization of

electoral institutions (ritualization of elections) while resorting to a more holistic definition

carries wider expectations about social and economic models.24 The consolidation of

democracy would imply then not only to hold regular and elections but also to create

sustainable relations between representatives, government and civil society, with strong

spaces for political parties, social movements, and trade unions, and to reduce economic

inequalities. It is a top-down as well as a bottom-up process, the aim being to persuade people

that democracy is the most appropriate regime. We do not intend here either to take part in

this debate or to engage in a definitive classification of the Ugandan regime, but to question

and understand, through thorough analyses based upon extensive fieldwork, practices,

instruments and mechanisms of power and legitimation processes.25

After almost 20 years of no-party system26 and only five years after the return to multiparty

dispensation, it is interesting to see how the NRM smoothly adapted to the relatively new

24
Graciela Ducatenzeiler, “Nouvelles approches à l’étude de la consolidation démocratique,” Revue

Internationale de Politique Comparée 8 (2001-2002): 191-198.

25
Vincent Geisser et al., “Introduction - La démocratisation contre la démocratie,” in eds. Dabène et al.,

Autoritarismes démocratique: 7-26.

26
Nelson Kasfir, “‘No-Party Democracy’ in Uganda,” Journal of Democracy, 9, no. 2 (1998); William

Muhumuza, “From Fundamental Change to No-Change: The NRM and the Democratisation Process in Uganda,”

Les Cahiers d’Afrique de l’Est, no.41, 2009; Sabiti Makara, “The Challenge of Building Strong Political Parties

for Democratic Governance in Uganda,” Les Cahiers d’Afrique de l’Est, no. 41, 2009.
 12

multiparty environment and progressively transformed into a political party that tried to

capture and maintain its electorate.27 On the opposition side, the 2006 elections had been

organised a few months only after multipartyism, and left a short time for parties to prepare

for elections. The campaign of the leading opponent and FDC President Besigye was also

interrupted many times by repeated detentions in Luzira Prison and court appearances to face

fabricated charge of treason, concealment of treason and rape.28 The 2011 campaign had left

the opportunity for opposition parties to strengthen their mobilization structures. Have

political parties made significant penetration of the grassroots to pose a serious challenge to

the dominance of the ruling party? Have they raised alternative policy agenda to sway the

voters? Have they put up credible leadership to attract a significant following? Has the

political environment been favourable for all political parties to actively solicit support from

the citizens?

It is also interesting to analyse the run-up to the 2011 elections and their outcomes in the

specific Ugandan political trajectory. Museveni’s regime has conducted elections at regular

intervals since 1996. Successive elections have been controversial, poorly managed,

characterized by irregularities and beset by state-orchestrated violence, repression and

intimidation of opposition supporters and the news media and failures of the Electoral

27
The no-party system was introduced in 1986 by the NRM officially to avoid the divisive partisan politics and

promote an inclusive political system. In practice, political parties did exist but could not perform their activities.

During elections, voters could choose between different individuals according to what the NRM imposed as a

merit-system, rather than a party system. The 2005 amendment of the Constitution and enactment of the revised

Political Parties and Organizations Act, ended the rule of the Movement (or no-party system) political system,

and ushered a multiparty political dispensation.

28
Besigye was acquitted of rape charges in March 2006, and of treason in October 2010.
 13

Commission to administer the polls effectively.29 The 2001 elections were marred by violence

and intimidation that induced increased domestic and international pressure for the restoration

of multi-party democracy. Adopted in 2005, multi-partyism was concomitant with the

adoption of a constitutional amendment lifting restrictions of presidential term limits which

allowed President Museveni to contest for a third term in 2006. Although observers of the

2006 elections noted that compared to 2001, these were less violent and reasonably well

organized, the judicial harassment of Museveni’s main contestant, Kizza Besigye, reached its

apex in November 2005 with the siege of the High Court by the so-called Black Mamba, a

paramilitary unit that attempted to interfere with a Court decision to grant bail to 14 of

Besigye’s co-accused facing treason.30 The results of the 2006 elections were contested by the

opposition groups in the courts of law. The Supreme Court’s ruling criticised the critical role

of the EC in disenfranchisement of voters, counting and tallying results, that there were

excesses of election violence aided by state agents, government officials had abused their

official positions and resources to gain electoral advantage, opposition groups had been

unfairly treated and the electoral laws favoured the ruling party. While the judges noted these

electoral anomalies, however, they fell short of declaring the election null and void. They

concluded that the anomalies were not substantial enough to invalidate the electoral outcomes.

29
Julius Kiiza, Sabiti Makara and Lise Rakner, Electoral Democracy in Uganda: Understanding Institutional

Processes and Outcomes of the 2006 Multiparty Elections (Fountain publishers, 2008); Parliament of Uganda,

Report of the Select Committee on Election Violence (2002). Human Rights Watch, Uganda not a Level Playing

Field (HRW Report, 2001).

30
Sabiti Makara, Lise Rakner and L. Savsand, “Turn-round: The National Resistance Movement and the

Reintroduction of Multiparty System in Uganda,” International Political Science Review 30, no.2 (2009): 185-

204.
 14

So, how different were the 2011 elections? Have the restriction of political competition in the

run-up to the elections, the use of (violent) instruments of control, the wide monetization of

the campaign and patronage practices restricted the capacity of opposition organisations to

“organize and express themselves”? Could the relative restriction of civil and political

freedoms affect the pattern of voting and the electoral outcomes? Could elections, as

Diamond, Linz and Seymour suggest, “while competitive, still deviate significantly from

popular preferences”?31 In other words, do the elections outcomes represent the people’s

view?

Fresh Evidence: Putting the 2011 Elections in Perspective

To answer these questions, this book promoted a multi-disciplinary approach and therefore

multi-facetted analysis of the 2011 elections. Geographers, demographers, political scientists,

anthropologists took part to this collective project. The book is divided into two main parts. A

tremendous collection of data and mapping exercise opens the first part of this volume that

revisits the main transversal issues addressed during the 2011 elections: the management of

national and local elections, the commercialisation of politics, and the role of media during

the 2011 elections. The second part of this book gives detailed fieldwork feedback on three

case studies: Buganda, northern Uganda and Teso. The last chapter is a perspective of post-

electoral events and their impact on the way we understand the 2011 elections. Despite

different academic approaches, the texts compiled in this book converge on the following

points.

31
Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries (Lynne

Rienner, 1989), xvii.

 15

A nuanced victory

After 25 years in power, the 2011 campaign showed a seemingly rejuvenated Museveni and

NRM regime through major transformations in terms of communication mobilisation strategy.

High-tech robocalls, SMS, as well as concerts and electoral tours with pop stars of the

moment have been widely used by both the NRM and to a lesser extent the opposition to

mobilise supporters (see Nanna Schneidermann in this volume). Museveni dramatically

transformed his image by chanting lyrics of “you want another rap,” whose ring tone became

a hit among young people. In doing so, the NRM and Museveni, whose bush experience and

military victory was at the core of the legitimation strategy, expected to fill the generational

gap with young voters, the largest demographic group, who never experienced the 1981-1985

civil war. All along the campaign, loud sound system and lady dancers wiggling at the back of

pickups criss-crossed towns and villages. Nevertheless the singing and dancing campaigns

should not make us believe either that the campaign was taken lightly by the NRM or that the

new communication strategies symbolised a new form of electoral governance. The energy

and resources deployed by the NRM strategists clearly show that the ruling party took the

polls seriously. But yet, the NRM victory was not as uniform as expected.

Before explaining the electoral process and outcome, it is worth reappraising the 2011 results

through a nuanced and contextualised analysis in order to question the uniformity of the

voting pattern. The landslide victory of President Museveni and the NRM in the 2011

elections should not lead us to forget discrepancies in vote and participation. The mapping

and comparative exercise carried out by Valérie Golaz and Claire Médard clearly show that

there are still meaningful pockets of open opposition. People consistently voted for opposition

presidential candidate, MPs and local leaders in eastern Uganda (Serere, Kaberamaido and
 16

Soroti) and to a lesser extent in northern Uganda. Golaz and Médard also note a huge decline

of NRM support in the Karamoja region bordering Kenya, where a brutal disarmament

exercise was conducted in the last years. More unexpectedly a close reading of the results

highlights a decreasing intensity of support in western Uganda, the traditional stronghold of

Museveni and the NRM, especially along the coast of Lake Victoria and in the extreme South

West part of the country (Map 5). Secondly, the NRM electoral victory in northern Uganda

and Teso is not as massive as expected. The percentage collected by the ruling party is still

largely below the national average. And one has to take into account the decreasing national

turnout (from 72.60% in 1996 to 59.29% in 2011). Former opposition strongholds in Kampala

and northern Uganda experienced the lowest national turnout with 42.51% in Kampala,

44.71% in Amuru and 46.73% in Gulu respectively.32 This under-documented element raises

relevant questions about this high rate of abstention and its rationale. There would be need for

further research on who these abstentionists are. Why did they choose not to vote? While one

may consider that the low voter turnout in northern Uganda for instance may have been

previously affected by the high rate of internal displacement and by insecurity, there is need

to question this figure now that security is back in the region. Disillusion has to be considered

as a major driver in abstentionists’ behaviour, but field interviews do not clearly distinguish

whether abstention is a disillusion towards the electoral process as such (including the

immutable NRM hegemony), or towards the incapacity of opposition parties to act as vector

of political change, or even both. In the case of Acholiland, Omach attributes disillusionment

to both the recent past inefficiency of opposition to change the course of the war and peace

32
Buvuma district in central Uganda also got a very low turnout of 42.5% as well as Kiryandongo (46.09%) in

western Uganda.
 17

processes but also on the electoral process as such considered as a ritual to legitimize the

ruling NRM.

Table 1: Voters’ turnout in Presidential and Parliamentary elections (1996-2011)

Presidential elections Parliamentary elections

Election date Voters’ turnout Election date Voters’ turnout

2011 59.29% 2011 59.29%

2006 69.19% 2006 68.00%

2001 70.31% 2001 70.31%

1996 72.60% 1996 59.30%

Source: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA),

http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?CountryCode=UG (Accessed 26 November 2012).

Our third point is, neither Buganda (see Anna Baral’s article), northern Uganda (see Paul

Omach’s article) nor Eastern Uganda (see Sandrine Perrot’s article), three regions considered

either as opposition strongholds or opposition support area in the being, voted as a regional

bloc (see maps 7, 8 and 9). This challenges the influence of ethnicity as a decisive factor in

the voting pattern but also points at the divisive politics played by the regime through

patronage, co-optation politics and the (sometimes micro-)management of local issues, like

the land issues in Buganda for instance (see Lauriane Gay’s chapter).

So even if Museveni and the NRM obtained an indisputable victory at the national and local

level, the 2011 elections were not a homogeneous “big win.” The NRM exercised a careful,

multiform and sharp-eyed management of the electoral process, including through technical

devices like distortions in terms of urban representation (and especially the

 18

underrepresentation of Kampala, one of the main opposition strongholds), or NRM

constituency split that numerically favoured the ruling party. But underlying formal

mechanisms and informal practices also shaped voters’ behaviour: the clear continuities of the

Movement hegemonic mode of governance;33 the internal and external weaknesses of the

opposition and the transformation of the ruling party modes of repression and control.

The continuities of the Movement hegemonic mode of governance

The preparation of these elections started far ahead of the campaign. Years before the

elections, the NRM strategists both reactivated and strengthened the pre-existing party

structures, mobilisation and support networks, reinforced their grip on security forces and

elaborated new mobilisation strategies as well as subtle forms of control of opposition forces

to adapt themselves to the democratic constraints of multiparty dispensation.

Again, in 2011, the ruling party over-extended incumbency advantages to softly control the

electoral process and in particular weaken the impartiality and independence of the electoral

body (see Makara’s article on the Electoral Commission and Muhumuza’s contribution on

local state structures).34 The widely documented narrow fusion between the NRM party and

the state organs maintained the unlevel playing field in terms of finance, access to media (see

Florence Brisset-Foucault’s chapter), and structures between the NRM and opposition parties.

33
Rubongoya, Regime Hegemony in Uganda.
34
The large pre-electoral demonstrations against the EC members’ appointment and the opposition threats to

have their own tally centre and publish their own results had pointed at the dubious EC credibility. And indeed,

during the electoral process, the EC failed in its responsibility to clean the register of voters, issue voter’s card,

and contain candidates’ malpractices.

 19

But before and during the campaign, the NRM more particularly demonstrated a high

organizational capacity nation-wide. The NRM broadened and extended its pre-existing

grassroots mobilisation and patronage networks through the local administration structure.

Under the no-party system, the NRM organisation was fused with Local Councils (LCs) from

the village to the national level. Muhumuza’s chapter on local elections clearly shows that

particular attention of the regime to local elections. They are at the core of its strategy to

hinder the capacity of the opposition to penetrate the grassroots. The elections of opposition

LCs after the reintroduction of multipartyism only partly weakened this intimate link at the

gombolola (sub-county) and district level. But as Muhumuza argues, the fact that there have

been no local elections at the village level since 2001 hampered opposition parties to

penetrate the very grassroots.

In addition, while opposition parties failed to field all the candidate positions, the NRM

maintained continuous elective mobilisation of its cohesive grassroots structures. It engaged

in a nation-wide registration exercise in 2010 compiling the name of 9 million members; it

renewed its office bearers to set up an elected 30-member NRM committee in each village;

and elected its official flag bearers during the NRM primaries in August 2010 held under the

newly adopted universal suffrage that gave a large visibility to NRM candidates.

Secondly, the regime reinforced its grip on the security forces through the reorganisation of

security structures, quick promotions, and intensification of chaka-mchaka courses, a civil

politico-military indoctrination closely linked to the NRM and highly recommended to civil

servants and graduating students.35 The celebration of the 25th anniversary of the regime a

35
Sallie Simba, “The Role of Security Forces in the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of Uganda, 18th

February 2011,” (Unpublished paper prepared for the seminar Uganda's 2011 Elections:
 20

few days before the election day gave an extra timely occasion to reaffirm the historical and

organic link of the military–a historical pillar of the regime–with the regime and to reactivate

military symbols and legitimation tools of the NRM-A former bush fighters.

In the aftermath of the 2006 elections, some reforms were implemented to restrict the role of

the military in elections like removing polling centres from barracks, requiring that Uganda

People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) officers who wished to stand for elective positions retire

from the army first or restricting soldiers taking part to partisan politics. But many UPDF

senior officers openly campaigned for the NRM at the national and the local level. For the

first time in 2011, the electoral process also gave a central role to the police force. The

politicisation and militarisation of this previously flouted security organ and politically

associated with Obote’s regime, had been initiated by Major General Kale Kayihura,36

following his appointment as inspector General of Police in 2005. At the local level, the

administrative structure as well as local security operative’ networks still remain pivotal

actors of NRM mass mobilization. Resident District Commissioners (RDC), District Security

Officers (DISO) and Gombolola Security Officers (GISO) engaged in clandestine

campaigning on the NRM side.37

a Step forward for Democracy? Makerere University, 25-26 June 2012). Chaka-mchaka was introduced after the

NRM seizure of power as a military science and political education program. Officially voluntary, the program is

highly recommended for civil servants. Chaka-mckaka courses are accused by its opponents of being and

program of political indoctrination into the NRM's ideology.

36
Kayihura, the Inspector General of Police, was further promoted after elections to the rank of Lieutenant

General, and given a medal by President Museveni, which was seen by critics a reward for his political activism

in pro-Museveni campaign.
37
“Mayombo: Inside his troubled political life,” The Independent, 16-29 May 2008: 15
 21

The massive deployment of the military and the police in brand new riot gear38 on the grounds

of “vote protection” on the day of elections, the mushrooming of militias – many of them

being initiated by the NRM although largely invisible and ineffective on the elections day -,

crime preventers, election constables and the declaration by military commanders that the

military was ready to support the police in case of election-related (understand opposition-

related) violence all took part in the pre-electoral atmosphere of anxiety and fear and

maintained an if not intentional, at least opportune ambiguity about the intentions of the

security forces during the electoral process.39 It is interesting to notice the larger use and

probably more effective impact of militaristic rhetoric and symbolic in former

counterinsurgency-affected areas and opposition strongholds, as Omach for northern Uganda

and Perrot for Teso show in this volume.

Security issues were at the core of both Besigye’s and Museveni’s discourses, both of them

trying to show the nuisance capacity of the other: Besigye’s legitimacy relied on his ability to

demonstrate the regime’s repression of opposition members. Museveni, on his side, drew on

Besigye’s declaration about his intention to call for street protests to contest the election

results as a long-established strategy of the opposition parties to cause chaos. The NRM had
38
On 18 January 2011, one month before elections, the government shipped into the country a large consignment

of police anti-riot equipment, which was later positioned at all entries of Kampala and all major towns, signalling

that it was ready for any protests and dissent during and after elections.
39
See Kristof Titeca and Paul Onyango, “The Carrot and the Stick: the Unlevel Playing Field in Uganda’s 2011

Elections,” L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, Annuaire 2011-2012, 2012, 111-129. Sallie Simba notices that “in order

to improve on the coordination and command of the security forces during elections, the Mobile Police Patrol

Unit (MPPU) was combined with the Anti-Stock Theft Unit (ASTU) to form the Field Force Unit (FFU). The

choice of the abbreviation (FFU) was a source of concern with the opposition. In Tanzania, FFU would mean

Fanya Fujo Uwone (Cause chaos and face it). It is operational during election period particularly against

members of the opposition.” Simba, The Role of Security Forces.

 22

to demonstrate to the donors as well as voters that the opposition if not properly restricted or

dealt with would ruin the NRM’s reconstruction efforts, legitimising its strengthened grip on

security forces and the disproportionate display of force, as a preventive action to avoid

resorting to violence.

The return to a multiparty dispensation therefore had a limited effect on the Movement

hegemony on the political scene. Pluralism however had an unanticipated transformative side-

effect on electoral governance. It introduced a degree of uncertainty for the ruling party that

partly explains both the unexpected expansion of the hyper-monetization of the campaign and

the restraint and transformation of election-related violence into more subtle modes of control

and repression.

A reappraisal of the hyper-monetization of the campaign

The monetization of the campaign by its unprecedented level appeared as a major feature of

the 2011 elections. The 2011 will probably be remembered as the most expensive elections

ever in Uganda. During the campaign, serious concerns emerged about how public funds were

being used, particularly to support the campaigns of the ruling National Resistance

Movement. Even though there is a wide consensus on the large infusion of money in the lead-

up to the elections,40 there is also a large disagreement on its explanations, outcomes and

40
At institutional level, the EC and other state agencies used over USh 200 billion, three times the previous

elections. This is partly attributed to increase in electoral areas as a result rapid expansion of local governments.

The government requested Parliament to authorise over USh 600 billion (about USD 250 million) as

supplementary funding for various government ministries. Speculation remained strong that such monies went

into campaigns, especially of the ruling party. At the level of campaign funds, MPs were facilitated with USh 20

millions to “oversee government programs” during the campaign period. While some opposition MPs protested
 23

impact on voting patterns. In this volume, Kristof Titeca through a fine-grain analysis of

specific groups in the urban informal economy interestingly revisits this issue and suggests

that the high monetization of the campaign nurtured an increased political competition due to

the restoration of multiparty politics. The new political dispensation signified the need for the

regime to widen its “winning coalition,” i.e. the groups of voters who could maintain it to

power that proportionally led to an “inflationary patronage” based on populist

instrumentalization of government programs, material and financial incentives or even

protection of specific groups from policies affecting them (taxation, security provision, etc.).

This extensive distribution of money and public funds transcended a mere vote-buying

strategy. Opinion polls and qualitative interviews both show that voters consider they have a

room for manoeuvre in voting the candidate of their choice. During the campaign, opposition

parties and the NRM regularly recommended their supporters to take the money and vote as

they wanted. The monetization of politics has had three other fundamental side-effects. First it

affected the regime’s governance. The reactivation of dormant policy programs or structures

just before elections, the use of patronage politics or the distribution of brown cash-loaded

envelopes during election time is certainly not new in Uganda. But it has reached huge

proportions from the national to the very local level and has now entrenched a culture of the

commercialization of politics, as described by Titeca that circumvents official norms,

procedures and state structures. “Those that refuse to give voter bribes lose precisely because

they are perceived to be “mean,” “unaccountable” or simply “hungry” men and women who

the misuse of public money and returned it to the treasury, others amongst them refused to budge and retained

the money, arguing they were as entitled as their colleagues in the ruling party. It has to be noted that even with

the passing of the amendment to the Political Parties and Organisations Act (2010) to provide for government

funding of political parties, the government did not provide money for that item in the budget of the financial

year (2010/2011).
 24

are looking for their “turn to eat”, not to serve,” reports Julius Kiiza from a focus group

interview (see Kiiza’s chapter in this book).41

This trend clearly marks a changing pattern in the relationship of the NRM to its electorate.

The extended populism that specifically targeted the urban poor comes together with an ever-

growing presidentialism and personalized rule.42 Museveni regularly interfered in person in

the micromanagement of economically marginalised groups and what Mwenda calls

“mundane local issues,”43 thereby bypassing institutionalised channels of redistribution and

regulation. As such, Museveni represents himself as the representative of the poor and instils

distrust towards elites (especially urban elites mainly represented by opposition groups) and

institutions that prevent such an unmediated and quasi-personal political action and

relationship with the electorate.

Secondly the hyper-monetization of the campaign also demonstrated who holds the purse’s

strings. The NRM candidates repeatedly “invited” voters to “vote wisely,” to benefit from

resource and development programs distribution. Ironically, through this discourse, the

regime also discredited opposition candidates. It disassociated itself from the lack of service

delivery by accusing local leaders and especially opposition leaders, for not delivering the

money the central government sends.44 Strengthened by a context of widening economic

41
Julius Kiiza, “Political Finance and the Erosion of Government by Popular Consent in Uganda,” (Unpublished

paper Unpublished paper prepared for the seminar Uganda's 2011 Elections:

a Step forward for Democracy? Makerere University, 25-26 June 2012): 21.
42
Andrew Mwenda, “Personalizing Power in Uganda,” Journal of Democracy 18, no.3 (July 2007): 23-37.
43
Andrew Mwenda, “Why Museveni Won and Besigye Lost and What Can Be Done for the Future,” The

Independent, 24 February 2011.

44
Mwenda, Why Museveni Won.
 25

inequalities, this rhetoric lies on the idea that there is no way you can get a better life without

being a member of the Movement. It instills a fear of marginalisation and exclusionary

politics which raises interesting reflections on what it means to be in the opposition in

contemporary Uganda.45 More fundamentally, the commercialisation of politics questions the

effects of the intricacies between the economic and the political spheres and of the opacified

informalisation of resource distribution. Against this background, the issue of the middle class

and its role in politics would require further research. The fortunes of the middle-class are

closely tied to the regime and remain therefore volatile. This raises questions about the

capacity of such a regime to produce an independent middle class that could question or

challenge the regime.

The hypertrophy of the monetization of the campaign in the media and analyses, and the

dominant idea that the hegemonic NRM simply bought elections, through its sheer visibility

and omnipresence however, overshadowed other fundamental trends explaining the 2011

electoral outcomes including the transformation of harsh repression into more subtle forms of

control of the electorate, and the weaknesses of the opposition.

The opposition parties: The “weakest link”?46

The return to multipartyism in Uganda, as expected, did not mechanically generate functional

and strong political parties. As the 2011 electoral outcome shows in Uganda, opposition

parties did not benefit from the new political environment. But they also failed to capitalize
45
Thanks to Joshua Rubongoya who drew this point to our attention during our friendly and rich discussions.

Joshua Rubongoya is currently working on the specific issue of opposition in contemporary Uganda.
46
Thomas Carothers, Confronting the Weakest Link. Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies (Washington,

DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006).

 26

on the declining ideological support for the NRM, as well as on regional deepening divisions,

especially in Buganda as Anna Baral’s ethnographic insights into divergent discourses about

politics and elections in Buganda explore in this volume, while the regime successfully

mollified local opposition with pledges about land rights and resources (see Lauriane Gay’s

chapter).

This can be explained by both structural features and internal weaknesses. The ruling party’s

continuous hegemonic mode of governance leaves little space to opposition. The Ugandan

opposition could certainly not compete with the organizational and financial incumbency

advantages of the NRM. Parties still suffer from the effects of the past restrictions on their

structures and activities. Their grassroots mobilisation structures are underdeveloped and the

ban on the leadership renewal created generational bottlenecks and fuelled internal rivalries.

But the opposition lost political grounds also because of its continuous inability to tackle its

structural and organisational weaknesses.

Even if active at the district level, the opposition parties did not succeed in strengthening their

permanent support base and especially their structures at the lowest administrative levels

(village).47 The NRM attaches importance to the political control of the local scene. And the

non renewal of the mandate of LC1 leaders since 2001 prevented opposition to take a foothold

at the village level, as Muhumuza argues in this volume.48

47
Uganda Office of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, The State of Political Pluralism and Democracy at Local

Government Level in Uganda: A Report from an Assessment of Seven Districts (KAS, June 2010), 61.
48
While studying the 2005 referendum poll, Muriaas argued that “the widespread and all-embracing local

government structure” – i.e. the political but also the justice and conflict settlement functions of LCS – gives

incentives for voters to vote the NRM. Ragnhild Louise Muriaas, “Reintroducing a Local-Level Multi-party

System in Uganda: Why Be in Opposition?,” Government and Opposition 44, no.1 (2009): 106.
 27

Table 2: Party Support for Nomination of Members of Parliament

Party Independents NRM FDC DP UPC CP FIL GPP JEMA LDT PDP PPP SDP UEP UFA TOT

Nominated 529 238 189 86 102 7 3 1 12 0 9 28 5 1 63 1,270

Candidates

Source: Uganda Electoral Commission of Uganda website (2011)

The table above gives us a number of indicators about the strength of parties in nominating

candidates for parliamentary seats. NRM, the ruling party was able to slot candidates in all the

238 constituencies. It was closely followed by FDC, the main opposition party with 189

candidates, UPC, the other major party, came in the third position with 102 candidates,

followed in the fourth place by DP with 86 candidates. Of the smaller parties, it was the newly

formed party UFA that came close to the major parties with 63 candidates.

In this way, one can notice that the NRM also failed to capitalize on multipartyism that had

been conceded in 2005 and redefined as part of a strategy to tame party indiscipline. But the

controversial NRM primaries in August 2010 generated a large influx of so-called

“independent candidates” who contested against official NRM candidates. There were more

“independent” candidates than those slotted by the ruling party (NRM) and the main

opposition party (FDC) combined.

There is now a large literature on the weakness of African political parties.49 Opposition

parties in Uganda face well known shortcomings of the widespread “parties’ crisis”: the

49
The literature on African political parties has insisted for long on the institutional legacies of authoritarian

regimes in the formation and development of political parties. The monolithic practices of ruling parties in

formal constitutional multiparty democracies, the generalization of autocratic regimes and one-party states in the
 28

dominance of the ruling party, the lack of human and financial resources and the urban

concentration of their structures. But in 2011, opposition parties were also criticised for their

internecine rivalries, their failure to maintain a common organisation, the irrelevancy of their

program. The efficient symbolic and rhetoric strategies of the regime successfully discredited

the opposition as a credible challenger on both security and economic issues. But the opinion

polls suggest that neither the FDC, DP nor the UPC represent a programmatic alternative to

voters.50 The opposition misread the electorate political mood by focusing on Museveni’s

removal from power without drawing any post-Museveni program (see Nicolas de Torrenté’s

paper in this book).

More fundamentally, the failure of an alliance of opposition parties raised sour critics about

their incapacity to work on common grounds and to overcome the leadership issue. The Inter-

Party Coalition initiative launched in 2008 originally planned to field joint candidates for

presidential, parliamentary and local council elections. In the run-up to the elections, the

Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) got fragmented and faced large disagreement to pick

consensual candidates. As a result, the coalition endorsed Besigye’s candidacy in the

presidential polls, but the parties fielded parliamentary candidates separately. At the

1970’s and 1980’s and more recently the election-driven creation of ephemeral political parties during

democratic transitions affected the credibility of African political parties, described in terms of

patrimonialisation, low-institutionnalisation, weak ideology. Shaheen Mozaffar and James R. Scarritt, “The

Puzzle of African Party Systems,” Party Politics 11, no.4: 399-421. Giovanni M. Carbone, “Political Parties and

Party Systems in Africa: Themes and Research Perspectives,” World Political Science Review 3, no.3 (2007).

Mamoudou Gazibo, “Pour une réhabilitation de l’analyse des partis en Afrique,” Politique Africaine, no.104

(2006): 5-17. Carrrie Manning, “Assessing African Party Systems after the Third Wave,” Party Politics 11, no.6

(2005); Nicolas Van de Walle, “Presidentialism and Clientelism in Africa’s Emerging Party Systems,” in ed.

Patrick Quantin, Voter en Afrique. Comparaison et differentiation (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2004), 105-128.
50
KAS, The State of Political Pluralism, 61.
 29

beginning of the campaign, the IPC included only the main opposition party, the FDC and

three small political parties–the Justice Forum (JEEMA), the Conservative Party (CP) and the

Social Democratic Party (SDP). The DP leader Norbert Mao opted out of the coalition,

creating deep divisions within his party, while Olara-Otunnu, the leader of the UPC, withdrew

his party from the IPC in August 2010 after Kizza Besigye had been elected as the unity

candidate of the IPC. Both the dominance of the FDC within the coalition and the leadership

positions, and the presidential ambitions of other party leaders were pointed at.

This bickering also split parties themselves. The succession of Miria Obote as the leader of

the UPC created strong rivalries among young and ambitious party members and the election

of the controversial Olara-Otunnu did not create a clear consensus. Internal squabbles

factionalised the DP around the election as the leader of the party of a non-Muganda in

February 2010. Opposition parties have been struggling, and divided, rendering them weak to

effectively challenge the ruling party and to capitalize on anti-government dissent. The IPC

campaigned under the slogan “Change is coming,” when opposition have been discredited as

a factor of change. The opposition is perceived as a toothless contender that can certainly win

locally but never nationally.

The discrepancy between parliamentary and presidential results (some voters supported

Museveni while voting an opposition MP or vice-versa) brings another argument that shows

that voters’ opinions are less shaped by party affiliation than by the performance of

candidates. Candidates were voted according to their perceived capacity to take action or

when considered performers (the one who can bring resources–including through corruption

or patronage–, and is able to redistribute goods and services, or able to articulate the

constituency’s needs at the national level) (see Perrot’s paper). This voting pattern may be
 30

attributed to the persistence of the Movement individual merit system in people’s notions of

representation.51 One can also argue that even if multipartyism as a concept is widely

supported, political pluralism as a practice may not have been completely implemented by the

electorate, by the candidates themselves or even by both, an example being the persistent

defamatory campaigns, and criminalisation of opposition members.52

If the Judiciary, Parliament and the media play a central role in challenging the regime’s non-

democratic practices, one must admit that political parties remain, as Carothers said, “the

weakest link”. Carothers explains this weakness by what he calls the “Electoralist-from-the-

start-Syndrome.” In the transition to multiparty democracy, he argues, parties have been

created as sheer “electoral party and machinery” not as socially deeply rooted organizations

derived from local forms of mobilization and political action. In Uganda, parties are “mostly

personality-driven; the more popular the candidate is in a given area, the stronger the party is

perceived to be in that area,” whatever the party she/he represents.53 Besigye has built his

image as the leader of the opposition but the FDC failed to build itself as a permanent partisan

structure and organization. Parties lack grassroots links within their community and are

51
Muriaas already noted this in the 2005 referendum. Muriaas, Why Be in Opposition, 91.
52
Ottomoeller argued in 1998 that the widespread practice of grassroot democracy through the LC system

generated a “lack of appreciation of the multiparty system.” His interviewees associated democracy with

individual rights and privileges, more than with associational rights and the aggregation of popular power. One

can legitimately wonder whether the return to multiparty dispensation dramatically and qualitatively transform

this perception. Dan Ottomoeller, “Popular Perceptions of Democracy, Elections and Attitudes in Uganda,”

Comparative Political Studies 31, no.1 (1998): 98–124, quoted by Muriaas. John Ssenkumba, “The Dilemmas of

Direct Democracy: Neutralising Ugandan Opposition Politics under the NRM,” in ed. A. O. Olukoshi, The

Politics of Opposition in Contemporary Africa (Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1998).

53
KAS, The State of Political Pluralism, 59.
 31

financially dependent from the good will of a few national or international donors. Associated

to a lack of democratic internal rules of procedure within opposition parties, this partly

explains the weaknesses of political allegiance and the widespread practices of political

crossing as well as the failure of inter-party coalitions. The clientele of the local personality

remains a personal and not a partisan resource, and therefore can be negotiated as a factor of

promotion in the party they cross to (see Sandrine Perrot in this volume). Ugandan parties are

built on dominating leaders and as such, are highly exposed to and made fragile by the co-

optation of meaningful personalities by the ruling party.

The “mask of authoritarian domination”?54

In hybrid regimes, authoritarian practices are constrained by their coexistence with

meaningful democratic institutions. To face this inherent tension, the NRM regime before and

during elections, developed new forms of domination not only by demonstrating its military

hegemony but also through subtle logics of restriction of political competition and new

instruments of control and intimidation of the opposition. The regime did not resort to

massive harassment but rather to selective, symbolic and low intensity violence or

intimidation. It did not target party leaders–which in 2001 and 2006 drew massive

international critics against the government’s anti-opposition policies–but a few individuals,

local mobilizers or party representatives. But the violence exerted by the regime does not limit

itself to physical violence. Over time, the continuous repression also generated an internalised

violence that has induced new behaviours.

54
Diamond, Thinking about Hybrid Regimes.
 32

In a chapter dedicated to media daily practices, Florence Brisset-Foucault explores the

versatile relationships between the government and the media that oscillate between

repression and compromises. Since 1986, the spectrum of increased state interference has

enlarged from license suspension, physical intimidation and violence, shut down of radio

stations, suspension or firing of journalists, charges of sedition, political and economic

pressure towards media owners, pressure on talk-show hosts, advertisement restriction for

political parties, ban on public debates, to confiscation of equipment. As a consequence,

Florence Brisset-Foucault notes an interesting transformation of deontology and media’s

behaviour towards self-censorship and internalised control, especially for media in vernacular

language.55

One can also notice the NRM mode of continuous political mobilisation. This deep and large

penetration of the political space facilitated the efficiency of the NRM campaign but also

established a close link between NRM local representatives and voters, and as such a quasi-

personal control of voters. The analysis of domination and intimidation indeed cannot be

restricted to physical repression. One should not under-estimate the impact of night

campaigning to distribute salt, sugar or small money on local perceptions, but also the door-

to-door canvassing of voters led by Yellow Brigades as much as security operatives and

rumours of armed deployment especially in rural areas. The triplication at the Branch, the

District party Headquarter and the party national Headquarters of Yellow books where NRM

members were recorded which can be explained by the necessary triple checking of names

was also interpreted as a name listing of opposition members (see Sandrine Perrot’s text).

Violence is multifaceted and can be analyzed through various electoral devices including the

symbolic one. As we suggested about former conflict-affected areas, the campaign and

55
Journalists specifically targeted during W2W protests (see Sandrine Perrot’s epilogue in this volume).
 33

political domination may not be perceived the same way in every district, as well as the mode

of political domination may not be the same all over the country. But generally speaking,

hybrid regimes, rather than harassing or committing violence, discourage opposition and

freedom of expression through an incremental impact of previous state orchestrated electoral

violence. In a way, the use of electoral violence in previous elections is sufficiently

impregnated in the national psyche to make the use of violence unnecessary to intimidate

voters. This reflection leads us to interesting questions about what it means to be in opposition

in contemporary Uganda.

Hybrid regimes and donors: the role of aid in electoral politics

The 2011 elections were more observed than ever. The presence of a multitude of election

observers may have impacted on the diminished level of violence during elections. But a

critical look at the 2001, 2006 and 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections in Uganda

suggests that, despite numerous local and international recommendations and incentives for

reform, there was relatively little improvement in the quality of electoral governance. The

issue of level playing field for all parties remained tilted in favour of the ruling party and its

President. In spite of a relative decline in the use of violence and judicial harassment widely

used in 2006, electoral reforms were not implemented, incumbency advantages remained

overextended, politics was widely monetized, state apparatus was used in favour of the ruling

party, and the security apparatus was over-deployed. On its part, the Electoral Commission

failed the test on a number of issues, once again, the most prominent being the issuance

voters’ cards.
 34

By extension, the 2011 electoral process and outcome questions the intervention of aid for the

promotion of electoral democracies and the relevance of aid programs to improve the

transparency of electoral processes. Donors developed innovative politics in terms of direct

funding to political parties and promotion of inter-party dialogue. But one must admit that

international engagement comes up against a stumbling block when working on the

institutionalization of an effective (substantive) multi-party system. The pioneering literature

on political party assistance converges on the complexities and failure to tackle the inadequate

performance of political parties in terms of level of organisation, political program, autonomy,

interest aggregation, elite recruitment and grassroots support.56 And indeed aid policies also

have their unintended side-effect: aid flows fed electoral authoritarian regimes, the

conditionality of donors’ programs deprive the opposition from a real debate on economic and

political orientations and one can even wonder whether political parties assistance does not

create a side-effect that makes political parties more accountable to donors than to their

grassroots.

Ero Erdmann highlights the lack of emulation between political party assistance practitioners

and political scientists.57 This book does not seek to bridge this gap. But it is interesting for

our reflection to look at what clearly appears as an embarrassment of donors with hybrid

regimes. In this volume, Jonathan Fisher analyses the ambiguous attitude of donors, who

officially support democracy but actually are more concerned with economic growth and

political stability rather than by the effective promotion of democratic achievements. Through

euphemisms about the autocratic proclivities of the regime as much as circumvolutions about
56
Peter Burnell and André Gerrits, “Promoting Party Politics in Emerging Democracies,” Democratization 17,

no.6 (2010): 1065-1084.

57
Gero Erdmann, “Political Party Assistance and Political Party Research: Towards a Closer Encounter?,”

Democratization 17, no.6 (December 2010): 1275-1296.

 35

the fairness of elections, donors express their reservations about the management of the

electoral process, but they also rely more on technical assistance than on political leverage.

What could be considered as inconsistence of donor commitment to democracy is explained

in this chapter by competing foreign policies priorities, the lack of cohesion and the non-

synchronization of external pressures. But more unexpectedly, as Jonathan Fisher also

suggests, donors’ tolerance for authoritarian proclivities is due to aid agencies internal

structures and logics, including the obligation to “move the money” or career disincentives.

The reasonably victorious scores of President Museveni, the comparative advantage Uganda

has over Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire electoral scenarios, and the disappointing uncoordinated

electoral approach of political parties tilt the balance in favour of a consensual approach with

Museveni’s regime. In his analysis of the role of Parliament in the new multiparty

environment, Keating also suggests that if aid efficiency prevails in terms of security and

economic development, a strong executive power is more efficient than divisive and time-

consuming parliamentary deliberations and amendments.58 In the same way, international

stakeholders are caught in the loopholes of electoral democracies in which holding

“relatively” free and fair elections is a quasi-sufficient condition per se to affirm the regime’s

legitimacy. Our study shows more complexities in the political games that are played in

contemporary Uganda. The declining level of violence gave way to low-level, pervasive and

efficient forms of repressive domination and control. The confrontational politics and eruptive

state-orchestrated repression against the post-electoral Walk-to-Work demonstrations still

reveals the regime discomfort with opposition and more generally protest.

58
Keating, Can Democratization Undermine Democracy?
 36

As Julius Kiiza et al. already noted for 2006 presidential polls, elections must not be analysed

as an event but as a process.59 This highlights a major problem in the validation of elections

by international observer missions. Long-term missions are often restricted to a few weeks

mainly the one-month campaign and election day itself. Our study shows that one cannot

understand the outcome of elections by restricting the analysis to the electoral time only. One

needs to analyse what happened before and after elections. There is a continuity between

electoral and non-electoral periods. On the other hand, the leadership renewal in November

2012 in the FDC and the strong internal dissents within the NRM already show that political

parties are already preparing for 2016 electoral contest.

To sum up, evidence-based studies in this book point to a number of issues that have been

highlighted in this introductory chapter. The critical issues that have been clearly noted are:

on the one hand, that it appears a distant possibility that elections per se will change the top

leadership in Uganda under the existing institutional framework. On the other hand, it is still

difficult to tell whether or not elections will facilitate a transition to substantive democracy

where the people are governed with their full consent through their active political

participation in the governance of their affairs. Procedural democracy remains the modus

operandi, but even then, imperfectly. And third, opposition political parties still need to be

coherently organised, and accepted by the regime as partners in building a democratic Uganda

state. The rules of the game need to be agreed to by all stake-holders, if elections are to

translate into a proper functional democracy. Above all, what our study shows is one cannot

properly understand the 2011 Ugandan electoral outcomes through the sole issue of the

consolidation of democracy but has to take into account the complexities and subtleties of the

NRM hybrid regime and past election processes.

59
Kiiza, Makara and Rakner, Electoral Democracy.